Tom Daley's Splash! (ITV1) was utterly dreadful television - yet it was the
most popular programme on Saturday night, writes Catherine Gee.

Tom Daley teaching a motley crew of celebrities how to dive: it’s a format that could have been mildly entertaining in the way of Total Wipeout – in that watching people fall haplessly into large pools of water is quite funny.

Unfortunately the sight of a fat man attempting to look remotely graceful while diving from a 10-metre board wasn’t enough to save this televisual nightmare – purely because watching a dive takes mere seconds and this programme was 90 dull, bloated minutes long. In the end it served as little more than one long advertisement for the smile and sculpted abs of Tom Daley. Watching a gif of his best dive for 90 continuous minutes would have been more entertaining.

Team GB diving coach Andy Banks and former Olympic diving medallist Leon Taylor formed part of the judging panel. However, the producers perhaps feared that with the current trend for even judging panels to boast a celebrity, they must roll in Jo Brand to liven things up. Unfortunately, she didn’t.

What made Brand qualify as a judge on a show about diving was never explained – although admittedly she did provide reassurance to the nervous diving novices. In 2011, she made Jo Brand’s Big Splash – a combination of comedy and an exploration of water – so perhaps that was the tenuous link.

Ewen, Falconer and Canuso filled the “looks hot in skimpy swimwear” quota. Djalili and Lederer filled the “thank God they’re not wearing skimpy swimwear” quota. Both Ewen and Canuso had a fear of water; Lederer had a fear of heights, thus ensuring there was a cause to use daft dramatic music and slo-mo during the training clips. Poor Canuso even bopped his nose on the bottom of the pool and had to be taken to hospital.

After an hour of mediocre dives and dreary, coddlingly positive comments from the judges, we were left wondering what would fill the last half an hour. It turned out the answer was a bizarre, poorly choreographed dive-dance-theatre routine featuring chaps dressed like James Bond, posing on the boards with Martini glasses before taking the plunge in a variety of ways – one held a BMX, another was being straddled by a lady in evening dress. If this was Britain’s Got Talent, they’d have barely scraped through.

Most bafflingly, it was the most-watched show on Saturday night, averaging more than 6 million viewers (including ITV1+1). Admittedly, Saturday television between 7pm and 8pm is not known for good programming, but really, the repeat of Dad’s Army that was showing on BBC Two would have proved a more rewarding experience.

Viewers on Twitter were quick to pan what they clearly struggled to turn off, with writer and actor Mark Gatiss even contributing his own piece of damning verse, “'Strictly' moistened/Barrel scraped/Vernon's eyes/quiet desperation #splash”.

With another four episodes to go, will viewers learn their lesson and stick a DVD on next week?